Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: April 01, 2003
Publishing house: Simon & Schuster
Sale Popularity Level: 979171
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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You've visited the hardware store with him, stocked up at the drug store with him, bought your groceries with him, and plunked down your two bits for a shave and a haircut with him. And now the inimitable Vince Staten takes you out to the ol' ballgame, buys you some peanuts and Cracker Jack, and answers all the baseball questions your dad hoped you wouldn't ask.
In Why Is the Foul Pole Fair?, Staten details the origins of everything baseball, including, for example, the average lifespan of the major-league ball (seven pitches; fewer if Mike Piazza is at the plate), the exacting standards of infield maintenance (chronicling the declaration of the 'end of bad hops in our lifetime'), and the succinct, efficient nomenclature of big-league bats (Rod Carew used a C271 Louisville Slugger, so named because he was the 271st player whose last name began with a C to commission his own bat model. Simple, right?).
Blending dogged research, unaffected, self-deprecating humor, and a genuine love of everything baseball, Staten covers all the bases and explains why one of them is shaped differently than the rest while he's at it.
And though Why Is the Foul Pole Fair? is, of course, about radar guns and box seats, it's also about how a middle-aged father and an eighteen-year-old son hell-bent for college spend an easy, quietly meaningful afternoon together. Enjoying a day at the ballpark with his son, who is soon departing for school, Staten fondly illuminates how baseball has been colour and context in their relationship and, by extension, how it's been the same for everyone who thrills to the notion -- or memory -- of dads and kids having a twilit catch in the backyard.
Part anecdotal history of the sport's tableau, part demystification of baseball's tools and storied playing grounds, and part valentine to fathers and sons, as well as to the game that welcomes them both, Why Is the Foul Pole Fair? is chicken soup for the baseball lover's soul.
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Rated by buyers 
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I picked this book up at a clearance/used bookstore for $3. Having read it, I think I would've paid full price. (But don't tell the store owner.)
At very first blush, it looks like a book that would appeal to a baseball fan, like myself. And one would (somewhat, but not entirely) surmise that it is full of trivia. But this book is largely not about the game, but moreso about the things that surround the game.
In the book, Staten chronicles a Reds game that he and his college-age son attended, but that game is mostly a framework around which the book is built. The book is mostly about the origins/evolution of everything around the game. Staten even spends 3 pages on the origin of the turn-stile (after noting his trip through one at the ballpark) -- and **makes it interesting!** I don't even particularly like history, and I still found this book fascinating.
Staten covers the history of the tools of the game -- ball, bat, glove, uniform, catcher's equipment. He also describes the evolution of baseball cards, vendors (both stationary and those that roam the stands), and press coverage -- just to name a few of his topics. He even spends a bit of time on queueing theory, a passage the Reds may want to read, as they apparently do it wrong when you pick up tickets at will call.
Several of the passages also recall the days of his youth -- either as he played the game or the pro stars that he admired. This part especially appealed to me, as one of many curmudgeons out there that feel that pro sports have changed a lot -- and not for the better -- "since I was a kid".
Baseball fans and history buffs will definitely enjoy this book, but I think many others would, too.
By the way, the answer to the titular question is found on page 223 -- the foul **pole** is on the foul **line**, which is actually **fair**. Why the foul line is fair is left as an exercise for the reader.
Rated by buyers 
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Vince Staten professes to being an avid baseball fan. If so, there is no excuse for not knowing the correct name of the stadium where the minor league team in the area where he lives plays in. He refers to the Louisville Bats' home as "Slugger Park," when in fact it is "Louisville Slugger Field." This would be insignificant except for the fact that "Slugger Park" has an entirely different meaning-it was the name of the Hillerich & Bradsby Co's factory in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where the Louisville Slugger bats were manufactured from 1974 to 1995. The framework for this book is a trip to a Cincinnati Reds game that Staten made with his son, Will. No big deal there. How many millions of fathers take their sons to baseball games every year? The real purpose of the book is to explore the more mundate aspects of the game. Staten never does answer the question in the title of the book. Maybe there isn't an answer. It seems that Staten picked that question as the name of the book because it sounded good, not because it had anything to do with the content of the book. I give Staten credit for writing a different kind of baseball book. There has been far too many books written about baseball, with the biographies of most Hall of Famers told several times, and statistics dating to the 19th century analyzed over and over. However, perhaps the reason that few other people have written about Staten's subject matter is that no one really cares. Why would anyone other than a stadium architect care about how many restrooms or parking spaces to include in a ballpark? Everyone already knows the answer to that question: when the stadium is sold out, there are never enough parking spaces or restrooms. I did take some interest in the section about the width of seats. We have all been to a sporting event where we had the misfortune of sitting subsequent to a fat person who took all of their own seat and half of ours. It doesn't really matter how wide they make the seats. Americans are getting fatter and fatter, and we will continue to sit in seats in ballparks and arenas and chow down on hot dogs and nachos washed down with beer. If they make the seats wider, we will just grow into them. I don't really care how the manufacturer of seats decides on the width of the seats. Staten, as he has in several of his other books, takes particular interest in the mundane aspects of life. He may find it fascinating, but with some exceptions, for the most part it makes for very dull reading.
Rated by buyers -
I got an "advance uncorrected reader's proof copy from Simon & Schuster" a couple summers ago. I chuckled all the way through. My 13 year old is now chuckling as he reads each chapter. Also he gets extra credit in LA/Lit class for finding typos, etc.
We live reasonably close to Louisville , KY and try to see as many Bats' games as possible each summer. Even before Staten's chapter about how well Tom Nielsen keeps up the field,we were in love with Louisville Slugger Field. It's quaint ambiance is awesome.
As a baseball parent I'm not quite the baseball buff that many of the parents and coaches are here in Elizabethtown KY,but I do have bragging rights regarding much fun minutia about the game that they can't possibly know.
I've reread most chapters and will finish the others again this summer. Great primer !!!!!!!
Rated by buyers -
As the author watches a game with his son, some questions come to mind; he provides the reader answers to them in an entertaining way. I especially liked the true-to-life description of why catchers wear cups (chapter 13). It is a good, easy read for fans of all ages. You'll find answers to questions you weren't aware you didn't know the answer to.
Rated by buyers -
I was expecting an exhaustive encyclopedia of baseball trivia. This book is not that!
Instead, it's a meandering, enjoyable chat with a knowledgeable friend about baseball on a summer afternoon on the porch. Vince Staten frames his entire book around a big league game he attended with his grown son, but somehow every facet of that experience leads off on a tangent to a fascinating exploration of baseball stadium and game trivia from the ticket buying experience (which leads to essays on ticket printing and turnstiles), to telling his son about the time a shortstop lost a ball because it bounced off a pebble (which leads to an in-depth interview of a groundskeeper), to a certain snugness in the stadium seat (which leads to a well researched essay on studies through the decades of the width of the typical American backside).
These essays have certainly made my baseball game experiences more enjoyable and given me a store of trivia to trot out at parties!
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